HAHAHAHA yes, the problem is with the people who smoke pot, not the government that vilifies it and creates the black market that allows these cartels to make money.
i agree with you. we have created a thousand al capones all over latin america and the middle east with our idiotic prohibition. i just liked the cartoon art.
The art is incredible. Afghanistan's economy is largely dependent on heroin addition here and in Europe. The rise of the Taliban could arguably be linked to the decline of the mid-90's grunge scene.
I heard there was an MD in New Jersey who'd been writing prescriptions for medicinal marijuana for like $500 a person to anyone who came to him looking for weed. It took the CDC 6 years to catch up with the guy and they only found him because he sold so much ($50 million worth) that he had artifically spiked the rate of glaucoma for the entire state.
Also, one of my uncles is a medicinal marijuana farmer in Colorado. He's actually allowed to keep a certain portion of his crop and he has a license to carry a specified amount of weed with him wherever he goes.
Really though, we should just legalize all drugs. Instead of dropping $billions down the crapper fighting a "war" we can't win and fostering a culture of corruption and violence, we should be regulating the sale and use of drugs, taxing them, and using the profits to set up rehab clinics. Why we treat marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. any different from alcohol is beyond me. They are all harmful if used immoderately, but most people are perfectly capable of having 2 or 3 beers and not drinking themselves into a stupor.
Legalizing drugs could accomplish 3 huge changes for the better: 1 - It would reduce the prison population and prevent a lot of otherwise decent, responsible people from becoming criminals. We all know that kids who get tossed into jail for smoking up carry that stigma with them the rest of their lives and they are more likely to end up in poverty or in jail again.
2 - It would save the government (and thus the taxpayers) a ton of money. The DEA's budget for this year alone (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm) is $2.6 BILLION. And this is just for the DEA. It doesn't include spending for police drug units, it doesn't account for money spent to house the people in jail for drug-related offenses, and it doesn't cover the court fees associated with illegal drugs.
3 - It would take the funding source away from most of the dangerous gangs, from the drug cartels, and from terrorist groups. Take the money from the gangs, and suddenly there's a lot less incentive to join one in the first place. Without all the cash, it's suddenly a lot easier to track down and arrest the dirtbags running drug cartels. The Taliban gets a lot of their money from selling poppies to make heroin - if we take their means of support away, they can't buy guns or pay off the locals to keep fighting us. It's possible that ending the war on drugs could lead to a big step in ending the war in Afghanistan.
Now I'm not normally very....um....Libertarian, but I cannot help but agree with your overall position. The war on drugs has been lost. Legalise them and tax them.
There's no sales tax in Oregon, so no tax on groceries. And I don't own a car largely because of where the money would go. I support neither the oil industry nor the insurance industry.
Actually, I agree with you on the local tax part. We don't need to send that money to the feds when they'll just have to funnel it back to the locals anyway. I figure the areas with higher drug use will use the higher tax revenue to fund rehab and distribution facilities. Anything left over can go to local projects (schools, law enforcement, road paving, etc.)
I thought taxes were put on items that people don't really need. Like say TVs or picture frames. I admit I don't have a huge idea of how taxes work specifically. >.>;
I'm not a Libertarian either, but it just seems like all sense of reality goes out the window when you talk to people about drugs. It's all "NO! Drugs are bad and evil and anyone who touches them should be punished!" And I think a large part of that is that nobody really brings up the actual statistics. Most Americans have no idea how much money we spend on the war on drugs and how completely counterproductive it is.
I really like the art on this one. The best solution to this problem would be to legalize all drugs, but in the mean time I would recommend following Marc Emery's advice and overgrow marijuana in the US. He says if you have seeds, throw them in government gardens, flowerpots, etc. Basically throw them out on any government property, and eventually they will have to accept that making a weed that grows naturally illegal is dumb. I don't know if it would work, but I like the plan.
Yeah I used to laugh at all of the news stories about the government eradicating ditch weed. The DEA quit reporting the amount of ditch weed they had "eradicated" in 2007, but before that they admitted the 98% of all the marijuana plants seized by the government was ditch weed. I have heard that upwards of 175 million had been spent on this important cause of getting rid of feral hemp.
I'm literally shaking my fist at the computer after reading that. We have all this bullshit outrage, all these people screaming about spending money on health care and a public option. Yet we spend 175 million or more to kill "weeds"? Seriously?
Instead of wasting time whining about money "wasted" on a public option people should be up in arms over the 175 million truly WASTED on spraying Roundup on a naturally growing plant and the other BILLIONS spent each year on police, the court system and incarceration of people guilty of nothing.
I found where I got that figure from and that 175 million was 2 years ago, who knows what it is now. I know that recently at the arsenal cleanup (in Denver) they found some ditch weed growing and it was reported by the press and the Army officer in charge said they were going to burn it, so this is still going on to some extent.
Although I am against any government intervention in health care. I agree with you that people should be more upset at the government for wasting money on the drug war than wasting money on health care, or welfare or any of that kind of stuff.
Also I would laugh at the lame attempts to eradicate the weed, but never did I laugh at the costs incurred during the process. I can hire a kid to pull weeds for $5 an hour, I don't need some cop being paid overtime to do it.
Yeah, these Mexican drug lords killing each other can all be laid at the feet of American pot smokers.
Forget the Rockefeller Drug Laws, or the American Military playing drug war games in Mexico and other South American countries, or the fact that the War On Drugs is the actual cause of all this violence.
Blame the pot user, (who, if they're in California,) the source of their pot is likely grown right here in my home state.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 08:38 am (UTC)But not that anyone gave a shit about all the blood that was on cocaine, or oil, or CocaCola, or their coffee?
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 09:36 pm (UTC)/just kidding/
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 09:03 pm (UTC)Also, one of my uncles is a medicinal marijuana farmer in Colorado. He's actually allowed to keep a certain portion of his crop and he has a license to carry a specified amount of weed with him wherever he goes.
Really though, we should just legalize all drugs. Instead of dropping $billions down the crapper fighting a "war" we can't win and fostering a culture of corruption and violence, we should be regulating the sale and use of drugs, taxing them, and using the profits to set up rehab clinics. Why we treat marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. any different from alcohol is beyond me. They are all harmful if used immoderately, but most people are perfectly capable of having 2 or 3 beers and not drinking themselves into a stupor.
Legalizing drugs could accomplish 3 huge changes for the better:
1 - It would reduce the prison population and prevent a lot of otherwise decent, responsible people from becoming criminals. We all know that kids who get tossed into jail for smoking up carry that stigma with them the rest of their lives and they are more likely to end up in poverty or in jail again.
2 - It would save the government (and thus the taxpayers) a ton of money. The DEA's budget for this year alone (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm) is $2.6 BILLION. And this is just for the DEA. It doesn't include spending for police drug units, it doesn't account for money spent to house the people in jail for drug-related offenses, and it doesn't cover the court fees associated with illegal drugs.
3 - It would take the funding source away from most of the dangerous gangs, from the drug cartels, and from terrorist groups. Take the money from the gangs, and suddenly there's a lot less incentive to join one in the first place. Without all the cash, it's suddenly a lot easier to track down and arrest the dirtbags running drug cartels. The Taliban gets a lot of their money from selling poppies to make heroin - if we take their means of support away, they can't buy guns or pay off the locals to keep fighting us. It's possible that ending the war on drugs could lead to a big step in ending the war in Afghanistan.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 09:56 pm (UTC)The war on drugs has been lost. Legalise them and tax them.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 11:14 pm (UTC)Also I don't own a car either so I understand that part. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 04:32 pm (UTC)(Speaking of which... I don't support the mobile communications industry, either.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:09 pm (UTC)(however many medicines are taxed...)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-17 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 04:22 am (UTC)Instead of wasting time whining about money "wasted" on a public option people should be up in arms over the 175 million truly WASTED on spraying Roundup on a naturally growing plant and the other BILLIONS spent each year on police, the court system and incarceration of people guilty of nothing.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 12:12 pm (UTC)http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/467/DEA_spent_175_million_to_eradicate_ditch_weed_hemp
Although I am against any government intervention in health care. I agree with you that people should be more upset at the government for wasting money on the drug war than wasting money on health care, or welfare or any of that kind of stuff.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 05:26 pm (UTC)Forget the Rockefeller Drug Laws, or the American Military playing drug war games in Mexico and other South American countries, or the fact that the War On Drugs is the actual cause of all this violence.
Blame the pot user, (who, if they're in California,) the source of their pot is likely grown right here in my home state.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 03:57 pm (UTC)Making guns is the American way, even if they might be used to kill the first Black President in our history.